Adobe Photoshop CS6 initial thoughts

Beta version of Photoshop CS6 is out! I can say right off the bat I’m not a huge fan of the icon.. But honestly I can get over that, heck I can change them if I want to…

I’ve just finished downloading the Photoshop CS6 beta. Do the same! So far its proving to be an amazing program. I’ve listed out a few of my findings, feel free to add your own findings as well! I’ll be updating this post as I discover more about the program!

1) Love the darker interface! I’m a big fan of editing on grey, and the new palate color scheme is beautiful! You can tweak it from a dark grey to the same tint CS5 used.

2) Looks like they have integrated an auto save feature, I’d be interested to see how effective this is. I’m sure we all have lost a file or two from not saving enough and overloading our computer’s RAM.

3) Interesting change in the RAW editor, compare CS5 on the left to CS6 on the right. I really enjoy the new Camera Raw slider options. Much easer to work with than Camera Raw 6.6.

With the minimal tweaking I did, looks like the performance of Camera Raw 7 in CS6 is far superior to Camera Raw 6.6 in CS5.1 Comparison below, Camera Raw 6.6 on left and 7 on the right. Again, only a few seconds in each, and for the time spent Camera Raw 7 recovered much more data in the highlights and shadows than I could get with 6.6 in the same amount of time.

4) Right out of the box, changing no default settings on either Photoshop CS5.1 or 6, I’ve noticed CS6 is significantly faster running though several of my custom actions. A welcome change of pace!

6) They have updated several of the filters to render better and faster. Most filters have this cool circular adjustment wheel on screen where you rotate to adjust the amount of effect. Rather than moving a slider back and forth from CS5. Several new filters include the addition of new blur filters, which offer more control and a better quality blur effect. However it is still blur added in post and I would try to avoid this at all possible if I were you.. But if its your thing, its better in CS6.

7) A great new addition is the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter, which again I’ve only played with for a couple seconds, seems to work like a dream! Especially for shooting with lenses like Nikons 14-24. The auto correct is fantastic. Here is a before and after, full auto correction. Another score for CS6, better and faster than anything I have ever used in previous versions of Photoshop

UPDATE: Russell Brown talks about his 6 favorite CS6 features, check out 1:11 for a phenomenal example of the Adaptive Wide Angle Filter!

7) As far as I can tell the alleged un-blur or de-blur feature is no where to be found… I really hope I am wrong here, but I can’t find it anywhere.. Please email me if its there and you find it before I do!

I will add more to this list as I continue to explore the program and report any new features worthy of talking about! I know there are many to discover! Until I can research on my own, check out Adobe’s blog for some info on the new release!